


Caffeine Buzz

by sbuggbot



Category: SteamWorld Quest (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Humor, someone stop me from posting fics on my phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25007971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbuggbot/pseuds/sbuggbot
Summary: Orik makes a grave mistake. Copernica and Galleo leave him to do damage control on his own. Said mistake involves Armilly and coffee. Tarah and Thayne tag along for the free show.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 3





	1. Off the Walls

Armilly was getting _really_ restless by the time they were almost ready to leave the little shop. Even by how she normally was, Orik was finding it to be a bit ridiculous. He'd taken the twins out and run into Armilly, so they had decided to stop and visit for a while. As they left, Armilly took off ahead of the little group the moment Orik was headed toward the door, Tarah and Thayne following him.

"I think she's awake now," Tarah said, prompting a giggle from her brother.

Galleo and Copernica were standing down the road, in the other direction from where Armilly took off to. Orik waved at them. Copernica waved back after pointing him out to Galleo.

Meeting up with them properly, Orik was reminded of the fact that Galleo wasn't much of a morning person. The big bot was still very much half asleep. Had no external forces been at play this morning, he probably would have still been in bed right now.

Copernica said, "Morning," being sure to also say hello to the twins.

"Good morning," Orik said, absently noticing that Thayne was fiddling with his loose sleeve again. A quick glance over at the boy assured him he was doing so more to feel the texture, not out of distress. "We had Armilly with us a little while ago."

"Where'd she go?"

Galleo got his answer a moment later in the form of Armilly _ramming_ into him at full speed. Now remember, while wearing her armor, Armilly was the second biggest in the group behind Galleo. Getting tackled by her was no small thing. The force was enough to make him stumble, nearly knock him over (and would have if he hadn't seen her). He caught her and held her shoulders for a moment. " _OOMPH!_ Armilly, what the hell?!" 

"I can see _faster_ right now!" She was also talking faster than she usually did and squirming the entire time Galleo held onto her. He had to let her go before she knocked him over.

Copernica blinked, then looked in the direction Armilly had run off in. "Seriously, what on Earth has gotten into her? Did someone leave her alone with a box of cookies or something?"

"Nno, I was just taking Tarah and Thayne out and stopped to get them cocoa and we ran into her there…"

"Nah, this doesn't like a sugar rush," Galleo noted.

"Mmm, yeah. Kinda reminds me of that time she had had a bunch of coffee or something…"

Orik had a sudden realization, but between making this realization and figuring out the error he had likely just made, the only sound he managed to make was something that sounded roughly like "uhb---". It was still enough to grab the others' attention and Orik promptly found out that having multiple sets of eyes on him did not make it any easier to form a coherent sentence. "Is Armilly not supposed to have coffee?" he eventually managed to spit out.

"You get a more subdued reaction out of potassium in water." Copernica shifted in place, fixing her glasses and her grip on her book. "And that explodes."

Orik grimaced.

"...you let her have coffee." Galleo said it as a statement of fact, not a question.

Orik put his hands up, although his right hand only went up part of the way in its makeshift sling. He still had a tendency to imitate two-handed gestures even though his right arm didn’t move much. "She said it would be fine, that last time she drank a ridiculous amount to get the way she did…"

"She forgets she shouldn’t sometimes," Copernica said. "Or rather, she forgets exactly _why_."

Galleo rubbed his eyes. Today was going to be much, much more interesting than he thought it was going to be. "How much did she have?"

"I was paying more attention to the twins, I'm not sure," Orik admitted. He got a look from the other two. "Today's been a good day for them, they were acting more like kids and it was cute!"

 **"Hey!"** Tarah butted in with a performatively grumpy tone. Thayne meanwhile had a little smile that seemed more like what one would see on a cat's face.

"...I know she had more than one cup," Orik finished. "...She's going to be this way for a while, isn't she?"

Galleo and Copernica both nodded, the latter making a humming sound in time with her gesture. "Last time it took four or five hours for her to _start_ slowing down."

"We also weren't done growing yet back then, so it might not take that long or it might take even longer, who knows?"

There was a distant THUD and the crash of something thankfully not too breakable hitting the ground.

"Milly, could you come here for a second?"

It didn't even take ten seconds for her to be over there. How had she not vibrated off the face of the world already? "Yeah, what is it?" 

"How much coffee did you have earlier?" 

"Uhhhh, a couple cups?? Why?"

"You are absolutely _wired_ right now, that's why."

"I-I saw her add one of those energy things to her drink too," Thayne piped up.

Copernica grimaced and rubbed her eyes as she remembered the time she did that in college when she was worried about studying. Was _not_ worth how sick she ended up feeling afterwards (although it took way less to throw her body off than most bots in that respect). "Algyron, why have you forsaken us on this day?"

"SNEAK ATTACK HUG!" Armilly had somehow snuck around and behind Copernica, then scooped her up under the arms in a big hug. She spun in place, still holding her high enough to lift her feet off the ground. Copernica shrieked and kicked the air a few times before realising _why_ the ground was suddenly not under her feet at the moment. She gave Armilly a look over her shoulder, prompting her to release her with a giggle.

"Was that necessary?" Copernica asked, turning and crossing her arms.

"You're smiling, though."

"I'm trying _not_ to!"

"Not doing a very good job," Galleo observed. Copernica gave him a Look.

Armilly was already running around again.

Galleo rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, you have fun with all the...that," he said to Orik, gearing up to leave. 

"Huh?"

"You're the one who let her get like this, she's your problem now." Copernica was smirking, just a tiny bit _._ “I know I have to make sure things are set up for a lab I’ve been planning, and Galleo said he’d help out with that after fixing one of the contraptions he built for his mother.”

"Oh no." 

"Not really the sort of things you want a small tornado loose around." She shook her skirt off. "Well, I need to get going now…"

"Surely you don't--" Orik began.

Galleo hollered over his shoulder. "You opened this can of worms, now lie in it!"

"I don't think that's how that phrase goes, Galleo…"

Well, shoot.


	2. Well Now What?

Tarah and Thayne were quietly talking to each other while Orik stared off at nothing, attempting to grasp the mess he had gotten himself into. “Should we stick around?”

Tarah shrugged. “We didn’t really have anything else to do today.” Even if they had made plans, they were both used to tossing them out the window on short notice. It helped to be flexible when you had to fend for yourself.

“Dad might need help, too…”

“Yeah, good point. Armilly’s a lot even when she isn’t hopped up on bean juice.”

Thayne did a tiny little nod. It was settled, then. They’d tag along with Orik for now.

The sound of Armilly tripping over something and clattering to the ground, followed by her shouting, “SORRY!” snapped Orik out of his daze. He looked over and was surprised to see the twins still there. “You two haven’t left yet?” He figured they'd be more eager to ditch than Galleo and Copernica had been….

“Nah, we decided to stick around and watch the show,” Tarah said with her signature snarky grin, her brother nodding in agreement. “Might be funny.” 

“Alright, if you two want to.” Orik wasn’t going to turn down the extra help. He knew his limitations. "I appreciate it."

Armilly bounded over. “Hi again! Did I miss anything?”

Thayne looked back at the path of destruction she’d left behind, everyone else following his gaze a moment later. With a completely straight face, he said, “No, I think you hit everything on the way over here.”

Being more helpful than snarky (for once), Orik said, "Copernica and Galleo both had other things they needed to take care of." 

"Oh." She stopped bouncing for a moment. "What about you guys?"

"We don't have anything planned right now," Tarah said. "Just making sure nothing catches on fire or anything, I guess."

One thing about Armilly was that it wasn't difficult to get her to join for an outing of any sort. She enjoyed the excuse to explore and also the company. So it was a surprise to nobody when she said she wanted to hang around with them.

Of course, this worked out well since Armilly was currently in a state where she needed someone to be her common sense (or at least try to be). 

"What _are_ we gonna do?" Tarah asked once Armilly got restless and wandered a little bit from them. "Knowing Armilly, we probably shouldn't go with whatever pops into _her_ head."

To put it simply, her mind was currently going too fast for its own good. Ideas struck her and she acted on them right away before they could be checked by her impulse control. 

For example, she was currently trying to box-jump onto a nearby table. A sturdy one, at least, but still.

After a bit of thought Orik decided to take Armilly out to the forest to burn off energy. Trying to herd her around the village would probably lead to things being broken and upset shopkeepers, and he knew she'd feel bad about that once she calmed down. They could probably get some training in while they were out, although he wasn't sure if Armilly would be in a state to focus much. From what he'd seen so far she was _too_ energetic right now.

Algyron, she was about to knock a building down in this state....

Orik sighed. "Armilly, would you _please_ sit down for a moment?"

The answer was no. Well, she did sit down on the ground, criss-cross applesauce, but she was bouncing in place so much that her armor rattled. "What's up?" she asked after a five-second pause.

"I was thinking we could go to the forest today. I know you've explored a lot of it already."

Armilly's eyes lit up. "Yeah! Actually there's this one tree I want to show you that looks funny--"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (and I decide to cut it off here because I've hit a fuzzy spot in my outline despite having the parts *after* figured out)


	3. Boing

Once they got Armilly out of town (thankfully not breaking anything, only overturning a planter), it was a bit easier. Particularly since she was leading the way now; it meant there was a clear direction for her energy. 

Still, a hyper Armilly is way more Armilly than one would ever need in a normal situation. Without any walls to bounce off of, she was jumping and using the sturdy trees as springboards. Orik had to politely ask Armilly to wait up more than once.

"You think I could turn a stump into a big bowl if I burned out the middle?" She was thinking out loud and having bizarre ideas, as though the inner machinations of her mind weren't enough of an enigma on their own.

Orik was curious enough to humor her. "Suppose it was possible; what would you do with it? Tree stumps aren't easy to move."

"Never mind that, don't you remember what happened the last time you used your fire on a tree?" Tarah said.

"Oh. Right."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, uh… hey, look at this!" Thayne said. He pulled a small, rusty pocket knife out of the dirt. 

"Wonder how long that's been out here?" Tarah said. "Does it still open?"

Thayne tried to do so, but the blade wouldn't budge. "Too rusty…" he muttered, deciding to inspect the handle. It had a little badge of a cog with a green G on it.

Armilly paused her attempts to run up a nearby tree and grab a branch higher up. "Hey, that looks like Galleo's pocket knife! He lost it in the woods, like, eight years ago," she said.

"Funny how coincidences like this happen," Orik said. "I'd hardly call our world small, but then you have moments like this one happen."

"He'll probably be happy to see it again, he got it as a present from his grandpa when he was little." Seeing that he couldn't get the knife to work on his own (he had plenty anyway), Thayne put the knife in Armilly's outstretched hand. "He might be able to get it to work again, too."

A little way further, they came up to a relatively small gully with a stream running through the bottom of it. It wasn’t a huge obstacle, but it required the group to stop for a moment to figure out how to cross it. Folks didn’t travel this part of the forest enough to justify setting up a bridge.

"Betcha I can make that jump," Armilly said as she pointed to the other bank. It was a good meter or two away; not a massive jump but still one most people wouldn't make in one bound.

"For the sake of your everything, please do not try," Orik said with a sigh. He scouted the nearby area and found a downed tree trunk suitable for crossing. 

Armilly saw the trunk Orik was planning to use, but her way sounded way more fun, and therefore better. "I'm gonna jump it, watch!"

"Do a flip!" Tarah shouted. How were she and her brother already over there, did they climb the trees to get over or something? 

"Tarah, don't encourage her. If she gets hurt, you and your brother will have to help me get her back to town." Checking the log one last time, he got on and started walking across, his good arm out and his limp arm angling his sheathed katana outwards to keep balanced.

Armilly backed up, got ready to go, and ran. Once one bank ended, she leaped forward with a somersault….and fell short of the other bank, landing in the stream below with a muddy  _ splat!  _

She immediately hollered, "I'm okay!"

Thayne looked over at Tarah. "She probably would've made it if you didn't dare her to do a flip." Tarah made a face and shrugged; she had somehow underestimated Armilly's tendency to follow poor suggestions.

Orik made it safely across and stopped to rest against a tree, very much feeling his age at the moment.

Thayne straightened up and peered down the edge. Armilly was already sitting up and it looked like all her parts were on her the right way. “Can she get out of there?”

There were a couple splashing noises, then Armilly popped up from the gap and hoisted herself onto the bank. "Ta-da!" She had mud all over her now.

"Are you alright, Armilly?" Orik asked, standing back up. "It looked like you landed strangely."

"Yeah, I'm ready to keep going! Let's go!" And then she took off. Clearly, if she had bonked anything much, it hadn't been enough for her to notice yet. She looked back. "Thayne, you have candy? You didn't say you had candy!"

"I always have snacks," he said, hiding the baggie in his cloak again.

"You're hyper enough, Armilly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been really excited about that bit with Armilly trying to do a flip over the stream.


	4. The Woods

This particular tree Armilly wanted to show off stood out, considering how lopsided it was. It had branches on only one side; the other two-thirds of the tree was barren and seemingly missing parts of the trunk.

"How do you get a tree to look like  _ that?" _ Tarah asked.

"I think this tree got hit by lightning, like, a couple decades ago. I was pretty little when I first saw it like this."

"It's strange that it appears to have outlived some of the other trees around here," Orik said as he looked around. 

"Look at these!" Tarah crouched down nearby, investigating a downed trunk. "Are these mushrooms?" They were smooth, round, white, and grew close to the ground and without a stalk. 

Armilly looked over. "Yeah! I don't remember the scientific name but those look like puffball mushrooms," she said. She'd learned a little bit from Copernica. "There's usually some around here. Usually not this many, though."

"This area seems rather undisturbed, looks like no one has been by in a while to take any."

Thayne spoke up. "You can eat those?"

"You didn't know?" Armilly asked.

"We stopped bothering with any mushrooms after getting sick a couple times," Tarah said. "It's too hard to tell them all apart."

"That's fair; if you don't know what to look for it isn't very safe. You  _ can _ eat these when they're younger," Orik noted. "You just have to cut them open and make sure the inside's plain and white."

"One time I didn't do that and when I bit into it, it had gills." Meaning, it was a poisonous lookalike. "I spat it out right away and refused to swallow for fifteen minutes after."

Orik stopped to give Armilly a  _ how are you not dead _ look, then continued, "These ones are too old and dried out to eat, though."

"Look at this, though!" 

Grinning, Armilly kicked one of the big mushrooms, not hard enough to send it flying but enough to break it open and release a powdery cloud into the air that dissipated like smoke. It made Tarah yelp some while Thayne squealed, then they both started giggling a little bit.

"I love doing that," she said, kicking some of the smaller pieces to release more mushroom dust. "Sometimes Copernica gets annoyed when I do it around her, though."

"It's ok to just do that?" Thayne asked, investigating a smaller mushroom on the ground.

"Yeah, they're just spores for growing new mushrooms. This makes them spread more."

"Try not to breathe in a lot of the clouds though," Orik said. "They won't take well enough to grow but it isn't good for your chest."

Tarah picked up one of the little puffballs, then lobbed it at a nearby tree. As predicted, it burst into a little cloud, much to her amusement.

And so for a while everyone was poking, prodding, and stomping on the little puffballs, watching the spores spread all over. Even Orik was prodding at some here and there.

Tarah kicked at one a touch harder than she meant to and sent it flying. It bounced off Armilly's side. "Whoops, sorry."

Armilly got an idea again. And once again, she began acting on it before she could properly think about it. She bent down, scooped up a nice handful of mud, and threw it at Tarah.

The mud ball hit its mark and splattered on Tarah's arm and side. "Hey!" Obviously, this was a deed that must be done in return, so she threw some mud right back at Armilly.

As Armilly crouched down to get more mud, Orik said, "That's enough, you two." Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect than he was hoping for and Armilly decided to throw mud at  _ him _ instead. He dodged the majority of it but didn't quite avoid it. He kept his face neutral save for a raised eyebrow. "Really?"

She stared at Orik for a solid five seconds trying to process his reaction. It left her open to receive yet another mud attack, which she took as a declaration of war. 

Orik...tried to stay out of the way. It wasn't going to be the end of the world if he got his robe dirty, but he wasn't going to search out ways to deliberately get it filthy. There was also the matter that he had a clear disadvantage in this battle with his arm the way it was. With how intense mud fights could get, he didn't stand a chance.

Especially with Armilly being the way she was right now, slinging mud with reckless abandon. "When did you become such a terrible shot?" Tarah hollered.

"What? It's fun!"

Thayne, unfortunately, didn't think so when he got caught in the crossfire. Once he was hit, he found the mud to be unpleasantly gritty feeling, probably from sand mixed in. Whatever it was, he didn't like it one bit and froze. He stopped dead in his tracks, hunching and curling into himself and squeezing his eyes shut, trembling from going rigid. 

"Hey, leave Thayne out of this, he isn't in the mood!" Tarah hollered, seeing her brother's reaction.

Armilly whooped. "All's fair in love and war!"

"It's  _ mud _ , have some honor!" She yelled back when the knight showed little indication of toning it down. 

She flung mud again, missing Thayne but coming close enough it made him flinch and begin tugging on his ears. Unfortunately, she was oblivious to his plight.

"Armilly,  **stop.** " Orik said it with such a firm tone it also made Tarah stop what she was doing as well while Thayne's head snapped up to look at him.

She paused mid-grab. "Why…? O-oh." Armilly hadn't realized she had sent Thayne into a shutdown like that. She sheepishly started trying to get the bulk of the mud off of her.

Orik knelt down next to the boy. "Alright, hold on, Thayne…" He pulled a small cloth out of the folds of his robe and began gently wiping the muck off of him. He flinched when Orik first touched him but put up no further objections seeing that he was trying to help.

"Sorry..." Armilly looked down in guilt and started shuffling in place.

"I don't think any serious harm was done," Orik paused to be sure Thayne thought so as well; the latter responding with a calm little shake of his head, "but it's something to be mindful of in the future."

"Okay…"

As Orik finished cleaning up Thayne, Tarah asked him, "Is that better?"

"Mm-hm." He got up and took Tarah's hand, sticking by her side. 

Orik dusted himself and got up, noticing his joints had begun to tense up. "I think it's time we start heading back now. We don't want to be too deep in the forest when it gets late."

"No camping?" Armilly asked, oddly quiet.

"We didn't bring any stuff," Tarah said, "and I dunno about you but I don't wanna sleep on the ground In leaf litter."

"Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it!"

" **We have** ," Thayne noted darkly. " **Many times.** "

Armilly grimaced and stopped talking before she wedged her foot in her mouth further.

* * *

Armilly's lack of energy had not gone unnoticed by the other three, but as time went on it became more and more concerning. Earlier it could have been attributed to feeling bad over upsetting Thayne, but surely she would have bounced back from that by now?

"Armilly, are you okay?" She was dragging her feet and almost tripped right then.

"I'm not upset about earlier, if that's what it is," Thayne added.

"No, it's not that…" After a long pause where she tried to put the way she felt into words, she said, "...my head hurts."

Tarah pulled a small smirk. "Coffee's wearing off, huh?"

"Mnn."

"We timed when we started going back well, then," Orik said. "We'll be back home soon."

Armilly's energy level returned to something closer to her normal as they got back to town. In fact, it wasn't long before she passed the other three and inadvertently left them a bit behind. It wasn't that big of a deal, though, since they were all just going home and knew the way anyway.

By the time Orik and the twins got to the house, Armilly had already let herself inside. Good thing they'd stopped to clean up  _ before _ they'd gone into Goosebucket.

"Well, that wasn't a very long buzz crash," Tarah said as they walked in. "--Oh."

Armilly was sprawled out on the ground, not on the furniture but near it. She lifted her head and squinted at the group as they came in but went back to resting her cheek on the rug shortly after.

"Armilly, that's the floor. It can't be very comfortable," Orik helpfully said.

"Nnngh, I don't wanna get uuuuup…" she groaned, showing no intention of moving anytime soon. She was starting to feel sore and achy from the goofy things she did earlier.

"Suit yourself, I guess?" After getting out a little gizmo to play with, Tarah climbed over the side of the couch and got herself situated. Thayne joined her a moment later with a butterfly knife to twirl around. 

It looked like Armilly was either falling asleep or trying to resist doing so. All things considered, things had gone fairly well, Orik thought. He wasn't keen on making this mistake again, though. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that :)


End file.
